Comments on: Roman Wa-hey!: Grand Ages: Rome Demo

By: D

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:00:29 +0000

Also the story is pretty good (for a city building game) as you get a good taste of the different personalities during the era. They also have a brilliant voice for Caesar.

By: D

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:56:38 +0000

Let me expand on that comment.. The full game does not have this problem of not knowing what’s going on. I haven’t tried the demo so I cannot compare with it, but its pretty easily explained by the full game.

1) Buildings without workers will deteriorate and catch fire.
2) People will turn to crime if they are unhappy (no food or no job). Criminals will set fire to buildings.
3) Different food sources are nessesary to feed the people, multiples of one food source (like a butcher shop) is not cumulative. The trick is fitting everything into the same area.
4) There are overlays to tell you where crime is happening, where food satisfaction is low and which buildings are unemployed.

By: D

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:38:56 +0000

Eh, learn to play john.. All you have to make sure is that buildings are occupied and the people are fed. Buildings never catch fire by themselves.

By: john

john — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:53:25 +0000

played demo would not take this game if they gave it away
buildings constantley on fire so much so all pleasure goes out of the game aviod it like the plague

By: Biz

Biz — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:34:20 +0000

played it a bit. seems somewhat challenging just because they don’t fully explain the gameplay mechanics (my buildings caught on fire quite a bit… ended up demolishing lots… was i supposed to make happiness buildings that aren’t available in the demo version or something?), but i am not convinced that it has depth or strategy beyond basic build orders. i like how it takes away the need for micromanagement and focuses on strategy, but how much strategy is there? having a pig farm vs. a wheat farm vs. a fisherman’s hut is nice variety, but is it just aesthetics or is there some strategic component?

seems to have enough depth and strategy and variety to go through the campaign while learning the mechanics and building new things, but nothing after that. unfortunately the story is presented poorly and a simple splash screen listing 3 objectives isn’t impressive in this day and age.

maybe the city-building genre is supposed to be something different… i’m not familiar with it. i just played this as a RTS.

By: Dean

Dean — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:55:04 +0000

“Rule the Republic” …. err…

By: Bobsy

Bobsy — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:56:11 +0000

Yeah. Of course tenements catching on fire is a super-realistic for Roman Days, but the way the game handles it is a bit Albert Pooholes. Considering how frequently it happens the lack of any auto-rebuild or repair is silly. It’s an annoyance when you’re supposed to be enjoying plonking down new deathtrap housing.

It’s pretty obvious the designers loved that HBO/BBC series Rome. If you look at the female portraits, then – hey! It’s Atia and Octavia! – and the amount of wacky latin grafitti shows they wanted to be all seedy and “gritty” about it, even if it doesn’t take over the whole thing.

Finally, everyone calls them “pleebs”. SIGH.

Oh, and the interface and resources are crap. Can anyone recommend a better take on the ancient-build-a-city-fill-it-with-production-chains super-genre?

By: Kommissar Nicko

Kommissar Nicko — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:26:47 +0000

While I think city-building games are great, I’m not too thrilled about a Caesar-inspired title. What I want to see is Grand Ages: 2009, the long-awaited bloody sequel to SimCity 4.

By: john t

john t — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:49:13 +0000

I just had this great idea for an open-world Grand Theft Auto style game set in Ancient Rome, where you start as a Plebian, or maybe an immigrant and work your way up through treachery, warfare, etc, to being the Emperor.

I think it could work.

By: ThIrD-EyE

ThIrD-EyE — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:29:06 +0000

I tried to play the demo campaign twice after playing through both tutorials. I gave up in anger because everything I built would keep catching on fire until eventually even my outpost went up in flames. I have no idea why everything kept caching on fire, whether the building was unoccupied or not. The first play through i had my buildings close together, so the second time i spread them out, though it did nothing to help. I enjoyed the tutorials, but the demo campaign is really making it hard for me to get excited about this game after what I experienced. *Sigh*

By: ryan

ryan — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:01:17 +0000

Looks to be in the same vain as Caesar 4, which was a great game. This one seems to take that and run with it balls to the wall with great graphics. I’ve always loved the caesar series so should be good.

By: Bobsy

Bobsy — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:16:45 +0000

Oh modern Rome? That’s a totally different kettle of Vespas. Naw, I was going for Grand Theft Chariot.

Anyway, I played 10 minutes of tutorial and was vaguely impressed. The music’s a bit naff, but it reminded me that I secretly like resource management games. Plus! The tutorial voice sounds a lot like the tutorial voice in Sacrifice… Mr Yakko Warner.

Plusplus! There’s something utterly insufferable about Romaphiles who insist on using every damn latin word they come across.